


The People You Let Go Of

by PeachyRenjun



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder, M/M, there's some implied taoris but it's pretty minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 09:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18962245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachyRenjun/pseuds/PeachyRenjun
Summary: Yixing takes the wrong direction on the subway late at night and runs into the person he thought the universe had taken away from him ten years ago.





	The People You Let Go Of

Yixing hasn’t been back in Korea in a long time, not since he graduated from the little international school that he’d gone to for most of his secondary education and got on a plane to the United States because he couldn’t apply to any of the universities back at home--always China, never Korea--without gaokao scores. It’s been nearly a decade now, between the undergraduate degree, the year off between his undergrad and masters degree he took traveling around the mainland, the music production degree he got despite his better judgement, and the years moving back and forth between China and the US trying to work with anyone who wanted to hire him to write for them. He doesn’t plan to be in Korea for long, but he’s never been good at sticking to plans anyway. He supposes the time limit on his work visa is as much of a plan as he has at this point.

The little café is sweet, close enough to the nearby university to attract a younger crowd but open late enough at night that Yixing doesn’t have to restrain his insomniac instincts to make the most of it. He’s come here a few days in the past week, always settling down at one of the little tables in the basement with his laptop, headphones, and whatever coffee looks like it’ll keep him awake just long enough to get through another thirty seconds of whatever song he’s working on. He’s already inputted most of the loops, already played them out on his keyboard and inserted his own voice singing over it in a demo that’ll always be changed later. He just has to edit it, to change the levels and find the right place for each loop to blend into the next. The piano can’t be too high, but neither can the violin, and he always second-guesses himself about the beat of the bass. It always feels too fast at night, when he’s sitting alone in the basement with old American and British rock album posters plastered against the walls while a few young couples find all of the nooks and crannies of the room to whisper in.

Seeing the clock tick closer and closer to the time when the trains will stop running, Yixing turns off his headphones, shuts his laptop, and puts both of them back into his bag. He slings the bag over his shoulder, taking the tray with his empty mug in his hands as he stands up. Making his way to the stairs, he slips on his shoes from the cubby and walks upstairs to leave the tray at the tray return. The girl at the register, a college-age girl who had tried to switch politely to English when she noticed his accent earlier in the evening, nods at him as he leaves.

He makes his way to the main street of this area, relishing in the way that Seoul’s streets still feel awake and lively, even at this time of night. It’s still not midnight, but it’s past the point that the lights would have shut off and everything but the clubs would have closed if he were in Shanghai. There are still people walking around, now, the lights in windows still vibrant and street merchants still trying to sell cosmetics, trinkets, clothing, street food. He can’t but feel like an outsider, even if he’d once walked the streets of this city like a native when he was a teenager. He’d had friends, back then, friends who knew the city and who knew him even better. After so long away with so many phones uncalled and letters never sent, nowhere in Seoul really makes him feel like he belongs anymore.

He crosses the street to the subway entrance, walking down the flight of stairs and scanning his subway card--he’d told himself that he’d gotten it for the discount it gave over the normal price, but if he was honest with himself he knew it was because he’d keep it in his bag and pretend like it made him feel a little more like he belonged in the city that he was once forced to call home and now can’t help but feel a connection to. He supposes he’s as connected to Seoul as he is to anywhere, as he is to Shanghai or Changsha or the little college towns that he’d lived in for a few years in the US. Seoul held something special, Seoul would always be where he first fell in love, back when he was a dumb teenager with too many dreams and not enough motivation to reach for them.

He steps into the train car as a few people exit--some college-aged kids coming back to the dorms for the night, others likely transferring lines. It’s late enough that he can find a place to sit, and he sits down and looks down at his phone and internally thanks the universe that Seoul is nowhere near as big, geographically, as Shanghai. Traveling on the subway in Shanghai always felt like a journey that would never end, even when you could hear the announcements and see each stop creep closer to the next. There are moments, on the Shanghai subway, that one feels that it must have been ten minutes between stops because some stations are just so far out of the center of the city that it takes forever to get there. Seoul is big, has so many people, and yet it will never have the exhausting feeling of _eternity_ that Shanghai seems to have.

A few stops pass by without Yixing really noticing. He stops scrolling through Weibo posts to look up, seeing the night sky through the windows and realizing that they’re crossing over the river. He took the wrong direction of the train--and here he thought he’d gotten it down to a routine. It’s late enough that he couldn’t just get off and switch directions, and even though he’s on the circle line his stop is on the other side of the terminal station. Oh well, he figures, trying not to let the anxiety come up like it always does. There’s always taxis in Seoul, even late at night. He’ll just have to catch one, even if it’ll cost more and strain his budget--he’s never made much money in the US, and as much as he loves his home country the money he makes in China will never match the amount of money one needs to live in Korea for more than a month or two.

The train slows to a stop at the next station, the music that the circle line always plays echoing as the train arrives. The young woman sitting next to Yixing exits the train, and a young man takes his place, sitting just a hint closer to Yixing than is necessary. Yixing feels more than he sees the man looking over his shoulder at the Chinese text on his phone. He glances up, wanting the other to notice that he’s noticed more than actually wanting to see him. He freezes.

Soft skin, rounded cheeks and pretty eyes that Yixing had stared into a hundred times what felt like a lifetime ago. “Lay?” the beautifully pink lips ask, and Yixing has to internally shake his head at the English name he’d chosen for himself when he was a little kid, plucked from his home and dragged abroad because of his father’s work.

“Junmyeon.” Yixing hasn’t seen him, hasn’t even really talked to him or tried to contact him since their graduation day. It would have hurt too much. It still hurts, to see him now, so seemingly unchanged when Yixing is so certain that Junmyeon’s life must have changed and gone on without him the same way that life had dragged Yixing along through the current of time for the past decade. The one person that still tugs at his heartstrings a decade later among the millions upon millions of people in the city. What are the odds?

“What are you doing here?” Junmyeon questions, leaning into Yixing’s side now instead of politely trying to keep a millimeter of space the way that one always does when next to strangers. Junmyeon has always been affectionate with him. “What are you doing back in Seoul?”

“I’m just back for a month or two,” Yixing says, “for work. I’m going back to Shanghai after that.”

“I see,” Junmyeon says, a level of hesitancy creeping into his voice. “Are you going home for the night?”

“Yes,” Yixing says. “I don’t think it’ll run all the way to my stop, though. I accidentally took the wrong direction.”

Junmyeon’s hand touches his thigh, close to his knee, and Yixing hates the way that Junmyeon has always been this affectionate with him because he’s never known where the line is between the two of them, which parts were just their friendship and which parts were Junmyeon trying to hint at more. “How are you going to get home, then?”

“Taxi, I guess.”

“You could,” Junmyeon bites his lip, “you could come home with me for the night. If you wanted. I have some roommates, but they won’t mind.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.” Junmyeon gives him that same reassuring smile that he’s always been so good at giving, gummy cheeks making him look so beautiful and so adorable all at once. “You’re always welcome in my home. Wherever that may be.”

“Okay, then,” Yixing says, trying not to read too much into it. He knows he should refuse, that he shouldn’t drag this out longer when he’ll just have to leave again anyway, but he can be selfish for a little while. He can make bad decisions that he knows he’ll regret in twelve hours and he can walk back into Junmyeon’s home when he’ll always have to leave. He tucks his phone into his pocket and, with a quick glance around the train car to make sure no one is watching them too closely, he takes the hand that Junmyeon placed on his knee in his own fingers. “I’ll follow you home.”

“Just like old times,” Junmyeon says. “Promise you’ll tell me everything, when we get home.”

“What kind of ‘everything?’”

“Just everything. What’s happened in your life.”

“You have to tell me everything too, then.”

“Of course.” Junmyeon squeezes Yixing’s fingers between his own, and Yixing can’t help but smile even though he feels like he hasn’t truly smiled in years. Junmyeon has always been able to draw such emotion out of him, good and bad emotion alike. Yixing has never met someone like Junmyeon in the decade since he left Korea, never felt someone who was able to drag something out of him other than ambition and melody and apathy. “Our stop is coming up.”

“So close to Gangnam,” Yixing jokingly notes. “Did you get rich while I was gone, Junmyeon?”

Junmyeon snorts. “You really have lost your knowledge of the city, haven’t you? We’re not that close to Gangnam.” He stands, pulling Yixing up with him. “Come on, it’s the university station.”

Yixing chuckles, letting Junmyeon pull him along as they exit the train and make their way out of the station. They have to let go as they each pull out their cards and scan them, but Junmyeon grabs his hand again before they can even make it to the escalators that’ll lead them out into the night air. Junmyeon leads them down the winding streets, out of the main areas where there are still lights illuminating the streets even as the clock ticks closer and closer to midnight. They walk down quiet streets lined with rows of apartments buildings and Yixing tries not to imagine how many times Junmyeon has walked down this street before or all the people that he’s walked with. Junmyeon pulls him into the lobby of one of the buildings, and soon they’re standing on the eighth floor as Junmyeon enters the passcode and lets them in.

“There are some extra slippers in that cabinet,” Junmyeon gestures to the little cabinet that he means next to the entrance. “You can always just wear your socks if that’s more comfortable, though.”

“It’s fine,” Yixing says, reaching over to grab some slippers from the cabinet. Junmyeon slips on a set that’s already been laid out, next to two sets of shoes that were there when they came in. The roommates, Yixing presumes.

“You don’t have to be too quiet, but don’t shout or anything,” Junmyeon said. “Not like you would, but just in case.”

“Your roommates?”

“They wouldn’t care,” Junmyeon says, shaking his head. “The next-door neighbors have a toddler and they always come to tell us when we’re being too loud. Even if it’s three in the morning.”

Junmyeon guides him down the hall into the main living area, and then into his bedroom. It’s little, a full-bed in the corner with storage taking up most of the rest of the room. There’s a desk across from the bed with books lined up in neat stacks, and Junmyeon gestures for Yixing to place his bag there as Junmyeon takes off his own sweater and throws it over the back of the desk chair. “There’s a bathroom down the hall if you want to shower before bed.”

“I don’t need to shower,” Yixing says, “but I do need to brush my teeth.”

Junmyeon smiles. “Come on, then.”

Junmyeon leans against the counter in the too small bathroom as he smiles at Yixing, tooth brush sticking out of his mouth and the foam from his tooth paste coating his lips. Junmyeon has always been so cheesy, and Yixing can’t help himself from smiling back even as he mentally rolls his eyes. Yixing spits the tooth paste out, catching water in his hand and rinsing. “You really are shameless, aren’t you?”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Junmyeon lives to tease him.

“You’re flirting.”

“You like it.”

Yixing rinses his toothbrush and walks back to Junmyeon’s bedroom, even as he can hear Junmyeon’s laughter echoing behind him. He slides the slippers off before he flops onto the bed on his back, already sighing in comfort at the feeling of the mattress. The comfort doesn’t last long, as Junmyeon follows him back only half a minute later, but Yixing has to admit that this isn’t so bad, his own emotional hesitation aside. If Junmyeon is willing to be so open with him, even all these years later, he supposes he owes it to Junmyeon to return the favor.

“I have some extra pajamas if you want to borrow them,” Junmyeon says, closing the door and sliding his shirt over his head. He’s definitely gotten more fit since Yixing last saw him, his abs more defined than Yixing has ever seen on him before. “We’re close enough to the same size that they should fit you.”

“No, it’s fine,” Yixing says. He’s slept in his clothes before, no problem. He doesn’t want to burden Junmyeon anymore than he already is.

“Really,” Junmyeon says, glancing back at him, “even if you just want some sweatpants or something. Those jeans don’t look too comfy.”

“Junmyeon, it’s fine--”

“As the person who’s going to be sleeping next to you, I don’t want to feel those jeans against my leg.” He opens up a drawer, throwing a pair of sweatpants at Yixing. “Just wear those, will you?”

Yixing laughs. “Fine, fine. If you insist.”

“And you don’t need to wear a shirt, if you don’t want to.”

“You’ll enjoy it more if I don’t, right?”

Junmyeon blushes, but he doesn’t deny it. Clad in his own sweatpants, only a light t-shirt on his upper half, Junmyeon makes his way back to the bed. “Get the lights once you’ve changed, alright?”

“Alright.” Yixing shuffles out of his own clothes, folding them neatly on the desk next to his bag before he slips on the sweatpants.

Yixing flicks the lights off and slips into bed, tugging the covers over himself and Junmyeon. He’s closer to Junmyeon now than he’s been all night, closer than they’ve been since those last few months before graduation in their last year of high school. He remembers when he used to sleep in Junmyeon’s bed, when they used to cuddle too close for ordinary friends and kiss softly, hesitantly, and Yixing would have to look Junmyeon’s parents in the eyes in the morning and pretend that he was nothing more than a classmate.

“So,” Junmyeon says, laying his hand on Yixing’s chest. “Tell me.”

“What do you want to know?”

Junmyeon looks so nice against Yixing’s shoulder, his lips caught in the moonlight filtering in through the window. It’s like he’s meant to be there. Like Yixing is meant to be here, with him. “Where’ve you been?”

“Vermont.” Yixing pauses to let Junmyeon giggle. “For my undergrad, at least. I spent a year in China after that, then got a masters in music production in California. Spent most of the time since then in Shanghai, making music for people above my pay-grade. You?”

“I’ve been here,” Junmyeon says. “Moved around the different neighborhoods, but I’ve stayed in Seoul. I did a semester in Paris because I thought it would be fun. Realized my French sucked and decided that was the end of me trying to learn languages other than Korean or English.”

“Not even Chinese?”

“Only what I picked up from you.” Junmyeon begins to draw random shapes onto Yixing’s chest with his finger. It tickles, a little, but Yixing doesn’t mind, not when Junmyeon’s the one doing it. “Did you fall in love? With all the places you’ve been, you must’ve met someone.”

Yixing wraps an arm around Junmyeon, dragging his fingers through Junmyeon’s hair. “Only one. And even then, I knew I was more of a replacement than an actual romance.”

“What happened?”

“It was during that year I spent back on the mainland between my degrees. I met this mainland girl, when we were in undergrad. We were both in the foreign languages department, and she had just broken up with her boyfriend, this Chinese-Canadian guy, and she just needed a year to figure things out. She was a trans girl, taller than me, so we probably made a pretty weird looking couple, but it worked out. We saw a lot of cities, went to most of the provinces, slept on trains because it was cheaper to get the overnight slow train. She taught me northern slang, and I teased her for how bad she was with spicy food. And somehow, even though neither of us were really in love, I started to feel like a part of my heart would always be with her.”

“What happened to her? After?”

Yixing sighs. “She went back to the Canadian guy. Agreed to call me every so often. Apparently she’s gotten her medical transition done, legally changed her gender, and they’re engaged now. Planning to adopt kids from the mainland once they’re married.” Yixing runs his fingers through Junmyeon’s short hair, and tries not to compare it to the way that Taotao’s long hair felt in his fingers as they lied in a hotel room in Guizhou and didn’t talk about the way that the approaching start of Yixing’s masters program would end whatever it was that they had. Junmyeon has always been better for him, anyway. Has always been closer to really being his, if Yixing were to let him be his. “I’m happy for her, really. She deserves to be happy.”

“We all deserve that chance.” Junmyeon’s breath hits Yixing’s chest, and even Yixing, as awkward and hesitant as he can be, knows that he owes Junmyeon to ask him the same question in return.

“What about you? Did you fall in love?”

“I messed around with enough guys, you’d think I’d fall in love eventually,” Junmyeon replies. “Most of them weren’t all that interested in me, though. Not really. Not many guys really want to date the guy whose main goal in life is to become a literature professor.”

“Is that what you’re going for now, then?”

“Mhm,” Junmyeon says, “I’m in the last year of my doctorate now. Got a teaching assistant position and everything. I’ll probably start at one of the smaller universities first, but I’ll just be happy as long as I get to teach what I love.”

Junmyeon always used to correct his Korean essays, when they were in school together. He would set the book they were analyzing in front of Yixing, read the sentences aloud until Yixing could practically recite them from memory and then point out with striking precision where Yixing had misunderstood the wording. It was like he knew the books--modern, classical, poetry, all of it--better than he knew himself, better than he knew Yixing or any of their other classmates. Junmyeon could make the readings come alive, he could take words written hundreds of years ago and breathe emotion into empty words that barely sounded natural when written out.

“I’m glad,” Yixing says. “It suits you.”

Junmyeon smiles up at him, and Yixing can’t help the way that his eyes always seem to gravitate to Junmyeon’s lips. Junmyeon has always been too handsome, too beautiful for his own damn good. “Junmyeon.”

He shouldn’t be thinking this way, he really shouldn’t. Not when he’s just here for the night, only in the city for a few more weeks, when he’ll be back in his apartment in Shanghai in a few months and this will feel like a dream. Junmyeon has never been his to keep. Never will be. “Yes?”

“Do you want me to kiss you?”

Junmyeon tilts his head to the side, but Yixing knows the answer before he says anything. He wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t know the answer. “Yes.”

Yixing kisses him, and Junmyeon doesn’t kiss the way that he used to. His Junmyeon, his beautiful, studious, hesitant Junmyeon always kissed like it was a secret, like he was afraid of being caught. He would hold Yixing close and press a kiss to his lips, always close-lipped and innocent, and then draw away before he came back for another. This Junmyeon, though, is more adult, less innocent. He kisses with open lips and wandering hands, his hips nudging against Yixing’s as he leans more into the kiss and half-climbs into Yixing’s lap.

“You really are shameless now, aren’t you?”

Junmyeon smirks. “Sad I’m not your little blushing virgin anymore?”

Yixing cants his hips upward, enjoying the way that it manages to bring a blush to Junmyeon’s cheeks anyway. “I’ll always be your first. That’s what matters.”

“You could be my everything, if you wanted.”

Yixing blinks. That’s not what Junmyeon’s supposed to say. He’s spent years wondering what happened to Junmyeon and he always imagined that Junmyeon had moved on, that Junmyeon had found someone else that made him happy. That was what Junmyeon deserved. Not someone like Yixing, someone who struggles with emotions and channels everything that he does feel into trumpets and violins because his brain is a mix of languages that never seem to cooperate with each other. Junmyeon, his Junmyeon, shouldn’t still be in love with him. Because that means Junmyeon has suffered too, has probably sat up alone at night and wondered what went wrong and listened to whatever sad song made him feel the most beautifully broken. Junmyeon still being in love with him means that they’ve been idiots for years. It means that when they part again--because they will, because their lives have been going in different directions from the moment they met--this will just be that much harder.

“Junmyeon, we don’t really know each other. Not anymore.”

He hates the way that it kills Junmyeon’s smile but it’s better to do it now, in the dark of night where they can pretend not to see each other, than in the morning light where they’ll be forced to face it head on. “Don’t tell me that,” Junmyeon says, his fingers digging into the skin of Yixing’s shoulders. “Don’t tell me that I don’t know you. You’re my Lay, my Yixing, just like you always have been. And I’m still your Junmyeon. I still know all of your childhood stories, I still know the way that you hate being alone even if you claim that it helps you relax. I know the way you get sentimental over traffic lights and falling leaves but push your own feelings aside because you don’t think they matter. I know that you care about people, and I know that you do things that always end up hurting you because you think it will make other people happier in the long run. So don’t you dare tell me that I don’t know you. I’ve always been yours, and if you’re willing to use an ounce of the power of that amazing, strange brain of yours then you’ll find a way to make this work. To make us work.”

“I have to go back to Shanghai,” Yixing says, one of his hands digging into Junmyeon’s hip. “I can’t change that.”

“We can find a way, Xing. We can call, we can text, we can find ways to visit each other.”

“And it’ll hurt more to know that you’re mine and I can’t have you with me.”

Junmyeon looks him in the eye, his hands moving from Yixing’s shoulders to the side of his neck, to his cheek, to anywhere that will make Yixing feel like Junmyeon is already too close to let go of. “That doesn’t have to be true,” Junmyeon says. “We can find a way, find a reason to be together. You could come to Korea long term, maybe. I know there are a lot of studios that would love--”

“China is in my veins, Junmyeon, and that’s not something I can ignore. I spent all these years wandering and the only thing I learned on that year-long trip with a girl I should’ve forgotten is that I’ll never really be able to leave China the way I used to think I could.” Yixing takes one of Junmyeon’s hands in his. “I know you feel the same way about Korea, I know that the language and the culture and the mountains and sea are as ingrained in your blood as China is in mine. And to drag either of us away would just be cruel.”

Junmyeon squeezes his fingers tightly, and Yixing doesn’t know whether he’s trying to comfort or crush him. “We can split time, then. If I become a professor, then I’ll have to work here during the academic year, but we could go to China during all of the breaks. You could go more often, too, go a few weeks a year without me and visit friends and see your home.”

Yixing lets himself smile, even though he can feel tears coming to his own eyes and already sees them trailing from Junmyeon’s. His Junmyeon was never so pragmatic. “Didn’t you used to say that wherever I was, that was your home?”

“And then I grew up,” Junmyeon replies, his voice cracking, the bittersweet smile on his face reflecting Yixing’s own expression. “I learned how the world works and all the things that are unfair and through all of it the one constant was that I still wanted you.”

Yixing wraps his other arm, the one that’s not still clutching Junmyeon’s hand like a lifeline, around Junmyeon’s shoulders and pulls him down until he’s resting on Yixing’s chest again. He can feel Junmyeon’s tears against his skin, can feel the way that Junmyeon’s hair is still sharp at the ends like he’d just gotten it cut a day or two ago. He knows that Junmyeon must be able to feel the way that his heart is beating too fast, like it’s beating so fast that it’s trying to escape from his chest and just stay here, because his heart has always been weak to Junmyeon. “Go to sleep, Myeonnie,” Yixing squeezes his fingers once more, letting their linked hands rest on his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out in the morning.”

“You’ll stay?”

“Until the morning.”

“I suppose that’s already more than I should ask for.”

“You can ask for the world, Junmyeon. I just don’t know if I can give it to you.”

Junmyeon kisses his chest, gently, hesitantly, the way his Junmyeon used to kiss his cheek before class while no one was looking. Yixing feels his breath start to even out, and he tries his best to calm his own racing heart, his own fluttering breath, to join Junmyeon for a few hours of sleep where they don’t have to worry about what they’ll do when they wake up.

When the morning comes, the soft daylight of early-morning peeks through the windows of Junmyeon’s bedroom and Yixing wakes up to find Junmyeon sprawled across Yixing’s chest, head tucked under Yixing’s chin and arms encasing Yixing like Junmyeon was trying to make sure like he wouldn’t leave. He’s still asleep, and the sunlight hits Junmyeon’s nose at the perfect angle and makes him look so unbelievably beautiful. Yixing used to daydream about moments like this, used to imagine that one day he would wake up in bed with Junmyeon and they would both be adults with their own jobs and lives but somehow they’d still be each other’s. As impossible as it seems, as unfair as it is for Yixing to want it when he knows it’s just going to hurt them more someday when they’re arguing over spending too much time apart, Yixing wants it. He wants so badly to wake up and see his Junmyeon, _this Junmyeon_ , beside him. He wants to watch Junmyeon brush his teeth and hear all of the bad jokes that Junmyeon came up with in his dreams and can’t resist telling Yixing before breakfast. He wants to cook Chinese food for Junmyeon and know that as much as the mountains around Seoul hold Junmyeon’s heart in their hands there’s a place in his blood, in his skin, for everything that Yixing can give him.

And in that moment, even though all of the worries are still filtering through his head and he knows there’s so much that could go wrong, he decides to be optimistic for once. He decides to try.

“Morning, Myeon,” Yixing runs a hand through Junmyeon’s hair, smiling at the other’s confused expression as he blinks awake.

“Xing?”

“I’m here, Myeonnie,” Yixing tries to sit up, pulling Junmyeon with him. “Come on, it’s time to get up.”

“It’s Saturday,” Junmyeon protests, “we should sleep in.”

Yixing smiles, and he kisses Junmyeon to stop whatever protests Junmyeon can come up with. He doesn’t have to be anywhere either, not until the afternoon, but he’d rather be awake with Junmyeon than asleep. “No such luck.”

“Xing,” Junmyeon whines out the syllable as Yixing stands, walking away from the bed to grab his clothes from the dresser and start changing back into them. “Stay a little longer.”

“I’m not leaving,” Yixing says, even though the rational, anxiety-ridden part of his brain still tells him to just walk away and try to push away everything that’s happened in the last twelve hours and only think of it when he’s trying to write the next sad song. “I’m willing to try, Myeon. For you.”

Hands wrap around Yixing’s waist, and Junmyeon leans into his back and even just feeling the heat of Junmyeon against him is still as intoxicating as ever. To think that Yixing could ever willingly give this up. “Thank you.”

“No,” Yixing says. “Thank you. For telling me to come home with you last night.”

“What was I supposed to do, when the universe put you back in my hands? I couldn’t let you slip away that easily.” Junmyeon’s voice always gets a little softer, a little warmer, when he’s teasing Yixing. He’s so goddamn fond of Yixing and Yixing is so bad at conveying emotions but he hopes to whatever deity is listening that Junmyeon can read him as clearly as he can read Junmyeon. “You’re mine, now, you know that? I’m never letting you go now.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” Yixing says, and he turns around in Junmyeon’s arms and he kisses the love of his life the way he’d been too stupid to ten years ago. He kisses him because he’s going to stay.


End file.
